On the occasion of the website re-launch
So today marked the finale of a two year campaign to re-design, re-engineer and re-everything the flagship website where I work. And after the most excruciating day of bickering about…
cmkl
Shall, Dickson Booth Lake loop: trip report posted
I do this every year. Disappearing for four days in early fall. And yet, my partner, the lovely and talented Irene Jansen, puts up with me. I am a lucky…
Dear sisters and brothers: stop using your employer’s email
I am amazed that in 2013 I am still feeling the need to write this but Kathryn May in today’s Citizen is covering a PSLRB (the board that handles issues…
Dear awesome people of Québec, please scrap your secular charter
Or at least the parts of it that tell people what they can and cannot wear to work. And any other bits of blatant nativism/racism that may have escaped the…
Anyone still making fax machines? I found a buyer for you
Microsoft. I don’t usually comment on technology stories but this is Onionesque. Surely if Microsoft wants to regain its position as a technology leader/force to be reckoned with/etc etc it…
On Syria: dear world, please listen to Robert Fisk
Despite the odd title and even stranger subtitle the editors have given it, Robert Fisk has a good take on how things are lining up now that the US, France…
Where to put the bikes – my quest for a proper bike shed
We don’t have a garage. We have a bunch of bikes. We’ve been locking them up on the porch but that’s hard on the porch. So what to do. Well…
What a different world – bikes first in Holland
Bike streets. Cars are guests. The bike is right. This BBC News item makes me sigh: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?. Of course, the bicycle is the…
Profits, government cost cutting before safety equals disaster incubation
The author of this opinion piece in the Citizen was an expert witness at the inquiry into the deaths caused by contaminated drinking water in Walkerton, Ontario. The incubation of…
Quit with the radical weather watches
I hope I live to be proven right but we’ve been under various radical weather warnings for the last two weeks and none of it has actually ever transpired. Today’s…
My sweetie has a blog
One of the labour movement’s great minds and most driven, brilliant researchers has a blog. Oh and did I mention she’s got great taste in partners? She’ll be mostly following…
Customs complaints at Ottawa International Airport – What manner of pile? Complaints or something else?
In the three years covering the 45 complaints written of in this Glen MacGregor Ottawa Citizen story (Complaints pile up over airport border guards) about 1.6 million people have flown…
Mallory read to her parents tonight
Warning: braggy parent post trigger warning. At least I can promise I will keep it short. I wanted to mark the occasion. Mallory read ten pages of Charlotte’s Web to…
Rideau Lakes: home again home again jiggedy jog
I remember the first time I did the Rideau Lakes Cycle tour in 2001. When I got home my hands were so stiff from holding the handle bars it took…
A long bike ride, then another one
That’s all it is. So why am I always so nervous before doing the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour? Well – just think about all the stuff that can break on…
Chesterville via South Mountain 161km
My longest ride to date, bringing me to 963km of training. If I do the parkway loop again this week I’ll make the Ottawa Bicycle Club-prescribed 1000km training kilometrage, despite…
Gatineau Parkway Loop, 59km
Hot, humid evening. My friend K and I had been talking about riding up to Champlain for a while and this time we actually did it. It was her first…
Pakenham, 147km
Cold, rainy day. Glad I brought my arm warmers. I kept up a good speed, though, despite (because of?) the cold and the distance. And I found a new cool…
Almonte 114km
There is such a thing as hill karma. It’s just an immutable fact. If you’re coming back to where you started, every metre of ascent will be returned unto you…